192. Great Books. Open to Honors freshmen only. (4). (HU).
Continuation of Great Books 191, from Plato to the Renaissance. We will read: Plato, Phaedo, Symposium, and parts of the Republic; Vergil, The Aeneid; selections from the Old Testament and New Testament; Dante, The Divine Comedy (Inferno, and selections from Purgatorio and Paradiso); Boccaccio, selections from the Decameron; Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Hamlet. Great Books 192 is open only to freshmen in the Honors Council; other students wishing to take a similar course are encouraged to elect Great Books 202. (Cameron, Peters, Gasbarra, Most, Ferran)
202. Great Books. (3). (HU).
Section 001. This course will examine the new image of man that began
to emerge in the Renaissance and some of its social and political implications
as these are reflected in some of the great literary and political works
of the last five centuries. The works to be read include Machiavelli's The
Prince, More's Utopia, Montaigne's Essays, Shakespeare's King Lear, Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Rousseau's Social
Contract, Marx's Communist Manifesto, Austen's Pride and Prejudice,
Balzac's Pere Goriot, and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.
Class format will combine lecture and discussion. Grades will be based on
class participation, three hourly exams (essay), and a term paper. (Beauchamp)
Section 002. A continuation of Great Books 201, although Great Books
201 is not a prerequisite for the course. From the ancient world: Plato's Symposium, Vergil's Aeneid, and selections from the Old Testament
and the New Testament; from the middle ages: Augustine's Confessions
and Dante's Comedy (Inferno entire, and selections from the Purgatory and Paradise); from the Renaissance: Machiavelli's The Prince and Shakespeare's King Lear. The course grade will
be based upon class participation, three short papers (about 1000 words
each), a midterm exam, and a final. (Wallin)
Section 003. When the unity of the Medieval Catholic world splintered into the plurality of European national monarchies bringing with it the problems of subjectivism, democracy, and heterodoxy, literature became a mirror of this exciting development. We will begin with Dante's Divine Comedy which both sums up the achievements of the Medieval world and foreshadows the tensions which are to come. Montaigne's Essays brood over a human self become fascinating, but troublesome. Shakespeare, in King Lear and The Tempest, probes the nature of the individual caught between the innocence of nature and the seduction of power. We will close the term by examining the struggle with individuation in its religious and philosophical dimensions, first in Milton's attempt to restore order in Paradise Lost, and finally in Goethe's Faust, who has become the symbol for both the creative vitality and the destructive possibilities possessed by modern man. Students will be evaluated on class participation, two shorter papers, and midterm and final exams. (Paslick)
University of Michigan | College of LS&A | Student Academic Affairs | LS&A Bulletin Index
This page maintained by LS&A Academic Information and Publications, 1228 Angell Hall
The Regents of the University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA +1 734 764-1817
Trademarks of the University of Michigan may not be electronically or otherwise altered or separated from this document or used for any non-University purpose.